March 6/98 8:16 am - Redlands Stage 2

Posted by Editor on 03/6/98

What a place to hold a Time Trial at!

The 92 women and 212 men remaining in the Redlands Classic Stage Race competed today in an individual 10 mile (16k) time trial. The venue for this event was the 48 million dollar California Speedway, a fantastic brand new facility built by Roger Penske, the car racing promotor. The track is 2 miles (3.2k) long, the surface as smooth as a baby's bottom and, of course, there was absolutely no traffic to be concerned about. The stadium seats about 60,000 people and is completely sold out for the whole car racing season, I was told. You can imagine that there were some empty seats for the cycling event. Actually, the few hundred people who showed up to see North America's finest cyclists compete against the clock, got lost in this vast facility. The weather was such that one minute you wanted to take off your shirt and the next you put on a jacket. The wind was gusty and at times there was quite a stiff headwind on the backstretch. Difficult to say if any rider or group of riders had a significant advantage by the constantly changing wind.

By looking at the equipment and clothing the riders brought to the start, one could tell that different teams had different goals for this event. While some came with the newest space age technology in equipment and aerodynamic skin suits and helmets, others (mainly the off road teams) were there just for the training and experience. The latter included race leader Alison Sydor whose only TT equipment were clip on TT bars. No disc, tri-spoke or even deep rim wheels. Alison still put in an excellent effort and finished in 16th place, 1:20 behind winner Clara Hughes. Clara, a two time Olympic medal winner for Canada, who started fairly early in the race, set a time of 21:08 that was not to be beaten by anyone in the star sprangled field of riders. Closest was Mari Holden of the US National Team (21:23) and Clara's Saturn team mate and many times US champion Karen Kurreck (21:26). Second best Canadian was Linda Jackson (8th in 21:41). That leaves Linda, who is an excellent climber, in definite striking distance for G.C. with an expected strong

Her stellar performance today will see Clara Hughes going into tomorrow's Lake Mathews to Oak Glen road race wearing the race leader's jersey. With the support of her strong Saturn team, and the excellent form Clara is in right now, she might be able to hang on to that jersey right to the end of the race on Sunday.

The men's race saw an excellent performance by the current Canadian Time Trial Champion Eric Wohlberg. Having just returned from a stage race in Malaysia with his very strong U.S. based Team Shaklee, Eric overcame jetlag, a throat infection and the gusting wind to come up with a blistering time of 19:04. Of the 115 top North American riders racing after him only Jonathan Vaughters of the U.S. Postal Service team was able to beat this mark with the only sub 19 minute time of 18:49. Third place went to Chris Wherry of Saturn (19:08). Roland Green of Victoria, riding early due to his problem in yesterday's circuit race, had set a benchmark time of 20:18. Roland, who was Canadian Time Trial Champion and 24th at the Worlds in 1995 accomplished this without any aerodynamic equipment on his bike. Roland's time was good enough for 49th place, tied with one of cycling's top riders of a few year's ago, Raul Alcala. Yesterday's stage winner Gordon Fraser, better known for his powerful sprinting than his time trialing, lost the leader's jersey by finishing 61st in 20:29.